Andrew Durkin
This course will offer a survey of major works, authors, and trends
in Russian literature
from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the present.
Readings (all in
translation) and discussion will focus primarily on masterworks of
prose fiction, but some
drama and poetry will also be included. Attention will be paid to
the social and
historical background of the readings, including the Revolution, as
well as to
developments in other arts in Russia and to cultural relations
between Russia and other
countries. Authors whose work we will read include Tolstoy, Chekhov,
Maksim Gorkii, Andrei
Belyi, Isaak Babel, Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Nabokov, and Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, as well
as contemporary writers. Requirements: for section 4381 (COAS
Intensive Writing): midterm
and final test; four papers of six pages minimum for section 4382:
midterm and final; one
paper of six pages minimum.
R 264/R564, Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn.
Nina Perlina
Purpose of the Course:
The course traces the development of Russian literature from mid -
19th century to the
present (Solzhenistyn and the young writers of the Former Soviet
Union). An introductory
lecture will consist in giving the historical and cultural
background; the 19th century
will be introduced mainly by Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov (Anna
Karenina and "Lady
Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"). The most interesting aesthetic
phenomena of the turn of
the century will be illustrated by a selection of short stories
written by Anton Chekhov,
Ivan Bunin, Andrey Bely, and by a play "The Lower Depth" by Maxim
Gorky (1902).
An allegorical tale "The Cave" by Evgeny Zamyatin will illustrate
the destructive impact
of a political upheaval on peoples' morality. Further varieties of
ideological and
aesthetic changes within the framework of Russian Soviet literature"
will be illustrated
by the writings of Isaak Babel, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Iury Olesha,
and Mikhail Bulgakov.
The vast span of years separating Vladimir Nabokov's prose (1925)
from that of Liudmila
Petrushevskaya (1979) will be represented by a collection of short
stories from Clarence
Brown anthology The Potrable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader and by
a collection of texts
selected by the instructor.
Attendance, Writing Assignments, Grades:
You are allowed a total of three cuts during the semester. Since so
much of the work of
this course takes place in the classroom, any more cuts will affect
your grade. You will
be given questions which will help you to organize your readings and
discussions of the
works. For this course, you will have to write three papers and to
present an oral
discussion of a short story. You will have a choice of questions to
write, but you may
suggest your own topics as well. Deadlines for the papers are shown
in the syllabus.
Topics for oral presentations are to be discussed with the
instructor two weeks before
your presentations. There is no final exam for this course. The
grades will be determined
by the following: 10%---attendance and class participation; 20% ---
oral presentation and
second paper (each); 25%--first and third paper (each).
Reading list (books are available from the IU Bookstore)
Carl R. Proffer, ed. From Karamzin to Bunin: An Anthology of Russian
Short Stories (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1969)
Clarence Brown, ed. The Portable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader
(Penguin, 1985)
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (Grove)
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Bantam or Norton)
Instructor's Reader (will be made available from the Department by
the beginning of February)